FLOWERS AND GRASSES. 83 



that name. In spring some woods seem to be 

 carpeted with green and blue from the profusion of 

 these flowers, which deserve always to be associated 

 with " buttercups and daisies " and primroses. 



The only wild Garlic we have met with in woods 

 is the Ramsons. 1 It has a strong odour of garlic, 

 and is said to be a great favourite with the Russians 

 as a seasoning for their food : 



" Eat leeks in Tide, and ramsons in May, 

 And all the year after physicians may play.'* 



After a.11 these there still remain some plants which 

 have flowers so insignificant that they are not popu- 

 larly classed with flowers at all, but receive the 

 general and vague designation of grasses. Not that 

 they are all grasses which the popular application of 

 the word includes, but they are grass-like in their 

 appearance and in the character of their flowers. 

 This group includes the rushes, the sedges, and the 

 grasses. The rushes are associated in one's mind 

 with marshes and swamps, but there are what are 

 termed wood-rushes, which have leaves that resemble 

 those of grasses and the flowers of rushes. Two of 

 these may be named as the most common they are 

 the Hairy Wood-rush 2 and the Great Wood-rush. 3 

 The leaves are fringed with long soft hairs, unlike 

 those of any grass ; and when in flower the rigid, 

 erect, branched flower-stalk, not to hint at botanical 

 distinctions, more resembles a rush. 



The sedges again resemble grasses in the form of 

 their leaves,' but they are more rigid, usually larger 



1 Allium ursimtm. 2 Lnzula pilosa. 3 Luzula sylvatica. 

 G 2 



